Me etc ⇣⇣⇣

BUGGER me sideways with an impulse purchase from the Innovations catalogue.

Those were the surprising and very, very, very slightly disconcerting words that assailed my lugs when I announced at the last Eclectic Boogaloo AGM (held in the Beckton Ramada Inn, Beckton) that I was poised - delicately, mind - to embark on another Lunchtime Jailbreak.

Why the surprise? Well, for one thing the people of Beckton are easily jazzed by weblog-related announcements. They don't happen often out there. For another thing it has been a while since I did a Lunchtime Jailbreak.

"Lunchtime Jailbreak? You're 'avin' a larf intcha guvnor? Strike a light on the Lambeth Walk I should cocoa," I hear my Cockney readership exclaim in between snacking on fun-sized pots of jellied eels and embarking on pie & mash-fuelled reminiscences about the blitz and grand nights out at Walthamstow Stadium dog track with Pearly Kings and Queens and Pete Beale. Well, sweet Cockneys, it is all true.

A typical Eclectic Boogaloo AGM occurrence

What is Lunchtime Jailbreak?
It's really very simple to understand, unless you only speak Dutch, in which case it will be very difficult to understand. But forgive me if I continue anyway, Holland-based readers. Know this: I will always love you, no matter how baffling I find your country, people and culture.

As I was saying, the point of the game. Using the speedy, efficient and remarkably comfortable service provide by the good folks at London Underground Limited (I'm being ironic here) Jailbreakers have to get as far away from their places of work as possible and back within one hour, or however long they are prescribed for their lunch (or "luncheon" as the agreeably-dead, toilet-faced fascist Nancy Mitford would have it).

The jailbreaker has to use more than one tube line and also has to get out at the station he, she or it reaches and buy something to prove they were there, or perhaps take a photograph. Actually, taking a photograph would be better now that I think of it, what with this being the digital age and so on. Why didn't I consider this during the frankly rather protracted genesis of Lunchtime Jailbreak? I don't know. It doesn't matter. Just let it pass and move on.

Past jailbreaks, all of which are chronicled elsewhere in this supposedly august publication, have taken me to such pancreas-arousing metropolitan hotspots as Finchley Road, Ruislip Gardens, Putney, Kennington and Camden. It's like Whicker's World, but without the fancy dan foreign locations, Alan Whicker and television production crew.

Speaking of Alan Whicker, my excursions throughout London's warm underbelly have provided me with the added benefit of bringing me into contact with a variety of celebrities, some good, others Su Pollard. If you don't believe me, sit down, set your pacemaker to 'celebrity-related shock expected in next few seconds' and let me casually lob a few names at you.

Stefan Dennis.
Ronnie Corbett. Ken out of Fame Idol.

Now make like Franz List and compose yourself. What all this waffle means is that Lunchtime Jailbreak is a wholesome enterprise that not only expands the player's knowledge of London but also teaches them valuable capital shortcuts, the most famous of which is "live in Padstow". It should be in the Olympics.

Lunchtime Jailbreak #7: Shepherd's Bush to Richmond. Distance: 6.143751 miles. Pointlessness rating: 3/10. Unlike previous Jailbreak locations such as Dollis Hill, Richmond has green open spaces, a big river filled with water, women called Kitty who wear rugby shirts and pearl necklaces, beefy blokes all of whom are called Giles and a pub you can get marooned in.

Additionally, Norr Stokube from Norway's premier eco/death metal band, Recycling Boxes are Collected on A Monday in Hell, is a resident. In general it is quite a pleasant place. Rock on.

10.00am. Shepherd's Bush (Central Line)
It's always a gas to be in Shepherd's Bush, with its carnival atmosphere, happy-go-lucky residents, Keynsian attitude towards street cleansing and sole London outlet of 'Jumbucks', a shop that sells pies purported to be an Australian delicacy but which seem suspiciously like regular everyday pies, which have been a staple of the UK diet since they were imported from the Piedmont region of pre-unification Italy in 1717. Ignoring the dwarf who is attempting to sell me a 'brand new' laptop outside the station for £300, I race graciously down to the eastbound platform of the Central Line. It's really quite exciting. After a very brief wait, the train arrives and I'm off. the words 'Woo' and 'hoo' form inside my head and I type them out.

10.07am Notting Hill Gate (Circle Line)
Casually elbowing my way past a group of 14,000 holidaying Spaniards, all of whom are smoking tabs and awaiting the inquisition, I make my way to the Circle Line, pausing only to contribute 14p to a woman collecting money for the Campaign to End Cultural Stereotyping.

10.09am High Street Kensington
This station used to have a roof.

Other notable facts about HSK station:
1. I once saw Michael Portillo (former Tory MP) there, being called a 'batty boy' by some young teenagers. Most amusing.

2. Over a period of four years, the woman who hands out leaflets for a hairdresser near the station unsuccessfully attempted to give me a flier approximately 4,709 times. This was in spite of the fact that I make a point of walking around with a placard that reads 'Say No To Hairdressing'. A statue of the woman has been erected nearby by PERM, the hairdressers' union, in honour of her borderline psychopathic persistence.

3. The station kiosk, High Treat Kensington, was officially opened by Anita Dobson and the Roly Polys in 1987. It also once featured in a video for a song by sideburn afficianado Midge Ure. It is also cited as one of Michael Winner's favourite places to buy Monster Munch in the capital. Gwyneth Paltrow tried to buy out the kiosk and turn it into 'Alfalfaville', a one-stop shop for alfalfa-craving vegans, in 2000. The ensuing armed siege scuppered her plans.

4. On exiting the station, it takes a fraction longer to get on to the street itself if one takes a short cut through Marks & Spencer as one emerges from the mouth of the station. However, the redeeming feature of this shortcut is the brief exposure it affords one to well-made if slightly unexciting clothing.

5. "The street is called Kensington High Street. Yet the station is called High Street Kensington. Why?" I hear you whine, like a spoilt child with buck teeth and no friends. "Because," I reply sternly, "a 1940 Act of Parliament decreed that no tube station could share the same name as the street it stood on, in order to confuse the Nazis if they invaded Britain then tried to take over London using public transport rather than, say, tanks." This reply is followed by a sharp elbow jab to the temple.

I execute a textbook forward roll and find myself on a District Line train to Earl's Court.

10.08am Olympia
Unfortunately I was distracted by the sight of behind-the-times Mancunian comic Eddie Large haggling over the price of a packet of Nice 'n' Spicy Nik Naks at the kiosk. Consequently I have ended up in Olympia by accident (it could happen people, it could happen).

Olympia, as everyone with a functioning brain stem and the wherewithal to turn physical experience and sensation into thought knows, is where the Olympics were invented in 1948. Some of the events that took place in that very first Olympics make for mildly amusing reading now. For example, those first games included events such as Crying, Squirrel Understanding and Pop Music of the 1970s Predicting (the latter event of course making a star of competitor Giles Totenhosen, who correctly anticipated the entire career of Mud. Tragically, he did not receive recognition or a gold medal until after Mud had become successful, by which time Totenhosen was dead.

That's not neat, not neat, not neat, to paraphrase a Mud song).

However, for all its fascinating sporting history, Olympia nowadays is not what one would term a barrel of amusing possibility. Illustrating my point beautifully, like a hand-woven piece of macrame depicting a hydrogen bomb being dropped on Bourton-on-the-Water, the Olympia exhibition centre is currently playing host to The Ideal Holmes Show, sponsored by the Evening Standard. This consists of 159,000 stands displaying the manifold ways that the TV presenter Eamonn Holmes could be made better (answers on an email if you have any ideas).

A resident of Olympia experiences 'The Eamonn Holmes effect'

Consequently, there is a lot of Eamonn Holmes-related action around the hall, which is more often than not grotesque and upsetting. I spend a nail-biting few moments waiting for the tube to Earl's Court. It comes. I get on it. It leaves. I am free. And easy. And cheap. But not that easy. Or cheap. You're a bit previous, aren't you? Get out of my way.

10.12am Earls Court (District Line)
Q: How many Australian backpackers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: 150,000. 1 to change the lightbulb149,996 to have a massive celebratory Sunday avo piss-up in the nearest Walkabout3 to work behind the bar at said piss-up.

Just kidding. I love Aussies. This is handy, because SW5 has more of our Antipodean cousins per square millimetre than the DVD box set of The Thorn Birds. However, like Gloria Hunniford, Earl's Court tube station is mildly aggravating and I am in a hurry. It is time to leave my beer-swilling, much better looking, fitter, happier friends from Down Under behind. In spite of the antiquated (and rather sweetly quaint, if truth be told) destination boards at Earl's Court, I manage to brilliantly decipher which train is for Richmond and jump triumphantly on to it. I am making good time. "This is a fucking cinch," I think to myself, rudely.

10.14am West Brompton
I am on the wrong branch of the District Line.

10.17am Earl's Court
A bunch of Aussies who have been reading Eclectic Boogaloo at a free internet outlet on the concourse identify me by my spandex 'Eclectic Boogaloo' merkin, Bad news. They harangue me for 14 seconds then beat me senseless with their surfboards, stuffed wombats and Home & Away pencil cases. Then they kill me.

10.19am Earl's Court
Not really. I was just pretending to be dead so that when they resumed reading the weblog at the free internet thing they would think I was dead. In reality I am alive and heading for Richmond. Chew on that, you spunky Aussie dills, or something.

10.27am Chiswick Park
I am on the wrong branch of the District Line, or the "Fucking District Line" as I am hoping LUL will agree to rename it once I have launched my petition campaign. I cross over to the other platform at Chiswick Park, a station which conspicuously lacks a park.

10.29am Turnham Green
There is a dry cleaners in Turnham Green called 'Turn 'Em Clean'. This is A Good Thing. I am on my way to Richmond. Oh yes.

10.31am Gunnersbury
I am definitely on the correct branch to Richmond. I look around the carriage. It is full of people who are so obviously on their way to Kew and Richmond that it is painful. I ask one of them the time. He looks me up and down and says "We don't do that kind of thing in Surrey, you tit." Nearly there.

10.36am Richmond
Hallelujah, as they say in the bible. I run out and take a photograph of a typical Richmond scene (see below), just to prove that I was there.

Die Toten Hosen relax with a dip in the Thames after a Richmond gig

Then I sprint - literally - back to the tube and attempt to make my way back to Shepherd's Bush in record time. The excitement mounts, it's a genuinely thrilling moment - it has been months since I attempted this game and the return leg always proves to be the climax, unless the journey there is more exciting, in which case it is the climax. You see? Can I make my way back to Shepherd's Bush in just 24 minutes? Do I have what it takes? Is it possible?

What is this Lunchtime Jailbreak thing?
FYI. Lunchtime jailbreak is a semi-pointless game that I invented when I was working in an office. While it is true that those days were wild and, to some extent, free, I really needed to take a dip in 'Lake Me' during the working day and enjoy some quality time haring around the underground system like the gigantic ninny that I am. Some people wold say the game has a Zen quality. They would be wrong.

The aim of the game is to get as far away from work as possible and back within one hour, or less if that is not the length of time assigned to you by 'the Man' for your luncheon. Originally, in ye olde olden days, participants had to leave the station they reached and buy something to prove they were there, but I stopped bothering with that, partly due to a lack of suitable retail outlets in and around London's tube stations, partly because it was just a bit of a crap idea. Yes, I know. You don't have to say it.

Those of you who don't live in London could play a similar game if you are turned on by pastimes with no discernible purpose, but of course you would have to get the bus, or a tram, or an inter-city train, or an aircraft of some sort.

I don't work in an office now but have continued to play the game when the mood takes me. I'm not exactly sure why, but what can one do? Apart from not play the game any more and spend one's time more profitably? I don't know. I really don't. But I suspect the answer might involve miniature teapot collecting and/or class 'A' drugs. There are lots of old jailbreaks elsewhere on this weblog, if you hunt for them.

Shepherd's Bush to Embankment and back via Hammersmith
05.15am. Sliding furtively towards Shepherd's Bush Central Line station, I realise that the Tube is not yet running and I am still in my 'Saxon World Tour '83' silk pyjamas.

09.15am. Shepherd's Bush
Take two. In many ways, the Bush is a dreamy spot . It's got everything - a postcode, pavements, freely available oxygen. But sometimes one has to cast oneself out of paradise in order to grow and so I begin my journey. Excitement surely awaits.

9.18am. Holland Park
Nothing of note.

9.21am. Notting Hill Gate
Nothing of note.

9.23am. Queensway
Nothing of note.

9.25am. Lancaster Gate
Nothing of note.

9.27am. Marble Arch
Nothing of note.

9.29am. Bond Street
Station closed due to rival superhero factions fighting for control of universe.

9.30am. Oxford Circus
Time to change to the Bakerloo line, the brownest of all underground lines. Time is tight so I jog rather funkily through the station interchange and moonwalk backwards down the escalator. As I reach the bottom I let out a high-pitched, Jackson-esque 'ooowww!' I turn back expecting to see joy on the faces of my fellow passengers, but they are to a man grim-faced. I don't know what that man did to them, but they don't like it. Happily Johnson, my favourite busker is in his usual spot. I tip Happily a nifty 50p in return for entertaining me with his bhodran-only version of I Dig Ale, The Lads and My Wheels (In Truth I Am Scared of Women) by purveyors of middling quality heavy metal, Dumpy's Rusty Nuts.

9.37am. Oxford Circus
A slight delay as I am unexpectedly dragooned into taking part in a Crimewatch reconstruction being filmed by the BBC. Someone has been picking people's pockets and moonwalking away at such velocity no-one can catch them. The Beeb are stuck for an advanced moonwalker. I calmly inform them that back in the day I was a county standard lindyhop champion and they hire me to play the part of the moonwalking criminal. Just as well I was around. Anything to help justice.

9.38am. Piccadilly Circus
The carriage I am in is empty but at Piccadilly it suddenly fills up. Curiously, about 30 people all bustle on to this carriage, while all the others remain empty. Couldn't they space out a bit?

9.40am. Charing Cross
There is a weird tension thing going on. A lot of the people who got on are staring at each other quite aggressively. There is a family of ginger people - mum, dad, girl boy - all wearing matching blue anoraks. Dad has Norwegian walking poles. Staring at them with a sneer is a young Welsh-looking guy wearing an iPod.

Across from him there are three Japanese students, all so fashionable that they are wearing the autumn 2017 collection from Kenzo. They are giving iPod boy the evils. At the end of the carriage are a group of 19 Italian tourists. I know they're Italian because the men among them are smoking, drinking espressos and singing love songs to beautiful dark-haired girls while holding single red roses between their teeth. The girls are having extremely impassioned fights with their lovers which will inevitably be resolved with prolonged public displays of affection.

I avert my eyes, pretend to read Metro and sit silently playing with my 'Writers Against Cultural Stereotyping' badge.

Next to me are a man and a woman, wearing matching three-piece tweed suits. Each has two black labradors at their feet. They are so posh that they have gold Oystercards. They both have Jilly Cooper's hair (not literally - a bald Jilly Copper would look like a cross between Irvine Welsh and Bagpuss - think about it.) and the rosiest cheeks in the world. They bray twittishly about how great red jeans and Oxfordshire are.

Across from me sits a late middle-aged man in a brown mac, harumphing and muttering to himself. At his feet is a huge dictionary. He suddenly leaps up, produces a black marker pen from inside his mac and inserts a missing apostrophe in an advert. It is for a kitchenware shop called 'Pans People'. Once done, he quietly exclaims 'For fuck's sake' (note the apostrophe) and sits down.

Anyway, as I said, you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. Not that I'm particularly bothered. For one, I'm handy. I can handle myself, and sometimes do. Furthermore, most of the people in the carriage are tourists, who are as soft and defenceless as new-born foals, staggering blindly in the warm rays of the early morning sun on a farm in Herefordshire. Also, ginger people mean no harm and, being genetically flawed, rarely get physical. What is more, braying poshoes don't want to get their hands dirty and Italians don't want to waste valuable smoking time by getting involved in 'aggro'. People with iPods are desperately trying not to get mugged.

That said, the tension is building up. Fortunately, I can escape by changing to the Dicky Line.

9.45. Embankment Station
Time is getting really tight. As the train pulls into the station I am in 'get set, go' position and sprint from the doors towards the Dicky. I run down to the platform - there's a train waiting. It's about to go. Just one leap and I can make it. I just manage to squeeze in between the doors and sit down, elated but frankly buggered, in the empty carriage.

Except it's not empty. To my surprise I notice that every single person who was on the Bakerloo Line with me has made it too - the ginger family, the Italian tourists, the trendy Japonaise, the braying twits, the pedant in the mac, iPod boy. To make matters more strange they are standing in silence, facing each other, intense, deadly looks, arms by sides. The train leaves. I shrink into my seat (I washed myself with hotter than usual water this morning).

All hell breaks loose in the tunnel. It appears I am stuck in a carriage full of comic book-style superheroes. The ginger family - aka The Ingingeribles - are in a flash transformed into lurex jumpsuit and mask-sporting, freckly überbeings. The Italians morph into one giant entity - a large man in a Valentino blazer and jeans with a yellow cashmere pullover slung casually over the shoulders - who can kill you by just suddenly stopping in front of you (at the bottom of an escalator, for example). Dangerous fumes rise menacingly from his espresso cup.

Welsh iPod boy (brief fact: they're actually called cyllwPods in Wales; ayePods in Scotland; EYEPADS in Northern Ireland) twiddles with the control panel on his gadget and emits a 'D' note pitched so high that I black out intermittently. The Japanese kids are simply so fashionable that they make you want to die.

Child superhero Kenneth Ingingerible

The old man - aka Pedantique - simply sits in his seat, noting what is being said, listening for a minor grammatical or syntax error to pounce upon and wreak his terrible vengeance.

The Ingingeribles attack the Japanese and instantly vanquish them with the canny tactic of being so desperately unfashionable that the Japanese dematerialise. The strawberry blond-pretenders seem to be able to make any item of unfashionable clothing appear and disappear at will. I'll never forget the horrific cries of pain as the Japanese kids melted into the ether, staring and pointing at Mr Ingingerable's marblewash denim jeans.

9.47am. Westminster Station
I must have blacked out. When I awake all is normal in the carriage.

9.48. Under St James's Park
Back in the tunnel, the terrifying, end-of-days type battle for supremacy thing resumes. The Italian man splits back into a group of 20 and they saunter down the carriage. The posh couple in the tweed suits chase them. The Italians stop suddenly to study intently a map of Theatreland and the poshoes run into them. The horror of touching a member of the lower orders instantly cuts short their amusing but ultimately pointless lives.

9.54am. Victoria
All is normal again as the train rolls into the station. From the platform, all the punters can see is a carriage full of happy, content commuters and tourists. If only they knew the very future of their world was being fought over, right here, right now etc.

9.56am South Kensington
We're not moving. The driver announces: 'Sorry for the delay ladies and gents, just being kept 'ere for a minute...just been in-formed by Control that Satan, Prince of Darkness and The Lord God are 'avin it out on a train in front over the last copy of 'Girl About Town'. Hopefully we'll be away in a minute'. At least they keep you informed.

9.58. Gloucester Road
The train doesn't stop, but I just catch a glimpse of The Prince of Darkness leaping over the ticket barriers and running away as God fumbles with his Oyster prepay.

10.00 Earl's Court
In the tunnel it kicks off again. cyllwPod has the Ingingeribles and the Italians backed into a corner and is playing Bhodran Heaven vol. 9 at them in its entirety. "So this is what pure evil looks like," I think as I continue to pretend I am reading Metro.

The Italians love the music though - well, they like jesters and clowns, so why not?. cllywllPod, the fool, is unwittingly making them more powerful with the music. They round on him like a pack of wolves, driven to the point of insane abandon by the sounds of the bhodrun, do him in and throw him off the train. C'est la vie, as they say in near Italy.

10.03. West Kensington
Just the Italians, the Ingingeribles and Pedantique left. They go for it, full throttle. A whirlwind of violence. Bodies fly. Anoraks are thrown on the wooden slatted floor as the train rattles noisily onward to some kind of final reckoning (Richmond, as it happens). Suddenly, it is just Mrs Ingingerible and her son left against 10 Italians. The odds do not look good for the gingers (but then they never did)

The Italians reform once more into one massive Italian tourist. He bears down on the flame-haired mother-and-son duo and says: "Heh heh my whey-faced ones, now-a I have you-a both for-a breakfast (that's how Italian's speak, okay?). With-a my flicka-knife I will do you both and rule the Solar Seestem. I will now brutally murder you, before riding off on a Vespa, eating-a some farfalle and stealing some Eenglishman's girlfriend with my lyrical language."

The Italian advances on the cowering, freckle-faced Duracells. I'll never forget the leer on his face. Or the little bit of tomato sauce that he had obviously had there since about lunchtime.

The Italian turns to face him. "You want-a-some old man?" he shouts, waving his knife.

"I do not want some old man, thank you. That aside, I think you'll find that you split an infinitive in that last statement. It should have been 'murder brutally'. I'm afraid I will have to kill you. Goodbye."

And with that, Pedantique pulls out what looks like a giant hook but which is in fact a large apostrophe with a sharp edge forged from pure gold on a distant planet (well, Sheffield). He basically hits the Italian with it and he turns to dust.

It is over. The Ingingeribles approach the old man, smiling, their arms held out ready to embrace their saviour and possibly form some sort of ginger-pedant alliance to rule the universe benignly.

10.05 Baron's Court
Instead, they kill Pedantique by angling the sun's rays off their bright ginger barnets to illuminate a sign on the wall on the station platform. The sign is missing an apostrophe in the word 'Baron's'. While Pedantique looks at the aberration in horror, ginger son hits him over the head with his huge dictionary and he dies a literary death.
Dem's de breaks.

10.07. Hammersmith
I have just eight minutes left to get back to Shepherd's Bush. The train comes and I make it back easily within time.

The West End. Such an evocative phrase. It's not north or south, or east. It's not even west, come to think of it. Why isn't it called 'The Centre End'? Apart from the fact that that would make no sense?

12.31pm, Saturday 6 November. Covent Garden.
I am striding manfully through Covent Garden to go to the Royal Opera House (not the actual RHO, it's a brilliant theme pub opened by the TFI Fridays 'gang' - see also 'The Royal Academy' tex-mex bar and grill) when I am accosted by a gaggle of 67 Italian tourists. Blowing cigarette smoke in my face and somehow managing to ignore me in rudest way imaginable while asking me a question, they want to know the quickest way to get to Leicester Square from Covent Garden.

Easy! Using my near, but not actual, encyclopaedic knowledge of London and its wonderful, erotic underground system, I can help them. I decide to kill time with one stone and carry out a lunchtime jailbreak - and to take this gaggle of continentals with me and give them a masterclass in how to play the Tube like an antique trombone. No-one - NO-ONE - knows better than I do how to get this bunch of chain-smoking, overly expressive continentals to the Square, pronto.

(If you are unsure of what 'lunchtime jailbreak' entails, click here. Sorry, here.)

Some Italian tourists, yesterday

12.33. Covent Garden.
No escalator of course. However, there are lifts that get very full, usually with excited tourists and the odd potentially-homicidal bible-jockey. We squeeze in. One such religious maniac is right next to me. He's massive - as big as a tree and with half as much personal hygiene. The lift doors close and tree/maniac exclaims "AND NOW WE DESCEND TO HELL!" (aside: this bit is actually true. End of aside). "Steady on old bean", I say. He whispers in my ear: "Don't worry - I'm a cub scout. This little stunt will win me my 'Madman Predicting the Apocalypse Any Day Now' badge". The Italians are looking a bit scared, so I distract them with wondrous stories of magical kingdoms that somehow manage to operate without 200 million layers of bureaucracy.

A religious maniac in action

12.37 Holborn.
Me and the 67 Italians race down the escalators to get the Central Line. Nothing interesting, or fun happened at this point.

12.40. Bank station.
The Italians are confused by Bank station. They seem to think that as it is called 'bank', we should all have to queue for an hour to be seen by an official before being allowed to ask if it is okay to get on the train. At this point, the official will sit down, put his feet up on a desk, light a cigarette, call his mother to ask her to do his washing, consult the sports pages of the newspaper, make a small frescoe, then v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y type out an official letter of inquiry to the man sitting three feet away, asking if it is, in fact, alright for us to get on the train. The man next to him will then go out for a five-hour lunch and resolve to read the letter tomorrow, maybe. (Not that I'm bitter about the time I was robbed in Genoa and had to spend an ENTIRE DAY at the bank sorting it out. Jesus!) Anyway, I tell them that it is okay for us to get on the train without official sanction.

12.49 Elephant & Castle.
Why is the Elephant & Castle called the Elephant & Castle? Well, it's actually a bastardisation of the old roman words 'Elfantium' and 'Cesstellium", which, roughly translated, mean 'disgraceful, monstrous concrete shopping centre' and 'urban wasteland which should be razed to the ground immediately'. Actually, it's not that bad. Sorry, I lied. It is.

12.54. Waterloo.
Has anybody else noticed that the corridors between the Bakerloo and Northern lines at Waterloo PERMANENTLY smell of sick? FASCINATIN' FACT: Waterloo station was named after the famous battle of Waterloo, which was in Belgium or France in 1788, roughly, in which the Duke of Trafalgar and the Duke of Wellington teamed up to beat Louis XV at petanque.

12.59. Waterloo to Green Park (Jubilee Line).
And so to the Jubilee Line. We have to stop for a second so the Italians can have a couple of cigarettes, a treble espresso and an impassioned argument about art. That done, we ease ourselves on to the train. I have a soft spot for the Jubilee Line. the new bits are all swanky (those were the actual words in the brief given to the engineers), and the older but newish bits built in the mid-1970s have fantastically gaudy paint schemes. Bond Street's red tunnels spring to mind. Ho hum. To Green Park, driver!

16.45. A tunnel, near Piccadilly Circus.
We have been stuck in the tunnel for three hours and 49 minutes now. The 'official' reason (yeah, like that's going to be true - it probably has something to do with the shape-shifting lizards who run the world from their secret lair in Dollis Hill) is that there is a 'broken down train' (code for something far more sinister) stuck in front of us.

The real story, as I point out to the other people in our carriage, who are backing away from me for some reason, is probably that Prince Charles has ordered that the whole tube system is brought to a halt so he can, er, divert our attention from the about-to-unfold-scandal that his Duchy Organic Chocolate Gingers contain mind-control dust designed to keep us a ll subdued while he and his family take over the world (although I must say they are very tasty - the biscuits, not the Royal Family). INTERESTING FACT: There is a circular tunnel that follows the perimeter Piccadilly Circus that allows for maintenance of the miles of electric cable required to power the illuminated sign thingies.

The Duke of Edinburgh enjoys some 'quality time'.

16.52. Leicester Square.
Phew. eventually, we arrive at Leicester Square, the world capital of entertainment and streetcrime. As we are in the West End it's only right and proper that my Italian friends and I 'take in a show'. But what to see? Now that Starlight Express has closed (I know it was actually on at the Apollo in Victoria, please indulge me), this is a toughie.

We make our way past the Princess Michael of Kent Theatre, where they are showing The Nazis (which features the popular song 'Springtime for The Producers'), past The Tebbit, which has the new Ben Elton-penned musical CLOSEDOWN! about the girl who was in the BBC Test Card in the 1970s with the weird puppet thing and the noughts and crosses game (see below), past The Cambridge, where Newsnight Review - The Opera has just opened, with Ronnie Corbett starring as Tom Paulin and Joe Pasquale 'doing' Mark Lawson. I don't know what to do. The Italians are relying on me for my unrivalled inside knowledge of London.

Panicking slightly, I take them to 'London's smallest theatre', where you have to insert 20p into a little slot in the door to enter. I manage to pack them all in, tell them to enjoy the show, wave with a faintly wan expression on my face, then wedge the door shut with a small American child. At last, I am free.

EDIT: Someone has emailed me to say there is a quicker way to get from Covent Garden to Leicester Square. What unutterable bollocks.

The Rules
You have 60 minutes to get as far away from your place of work as possible and back using the very, very, very slightly-better-than-it-was-in-summer-2000-when-it-was-as-effective-a-means-of-transport-as-a-tin-of-blanched-asparagus Tube system. You must use more than one Tube Line. Past jailbreaks have seen visits to fascinating, not-at-all-suicidally-dull parts of London such as West Ruislip (pronounced "Riesling" FYI), Cockfosters (Co-Fosters) and Willesden Junction (Whééles-dern Hunçion), officially the brownest place in the world, including Really Brownsville in Brown County, USA). But there have been high points too. No, really.

I know that some people are sceptical about whether I actually carry out these trips. Some may think they are the product of a fevered, slightly arsey imagination. But I can assure you, on Ken Livingstone's life, that when I say "I gave Derek out of Family Affairs a Chinese Burn at Tottenham Court Road station, because he asked me the time in a funny way", I really did do it, in actual real life, really. Okay? Cool.

In case anyone still has doubts, I now have to have an official adjudicator at the Start/Finish of the jailbreak, thanks to a piece of needless meddling from the Government after suspicion arose at the Department for Tube-based Game Playing, Timewasting, Pubs, Foreign Affairs, Farming and Miracles (known as DTGPTPFAFAM for short). The honour falls to former Bay City Roller Les McKeowan, who has agreed (after being told it was for charity) to be my official timer.

Les adopts a slightly bewildering pose on Notting Hill Gate

Another first: I have rescinded my amateur status and gone fully professional. While the heady, early days of lunchtime jailbreak were exhilarating, joyous, challenging and occasionally slightly moist, there comes a point in every man's life when he has to take stock - to set aside childish things, stop being an island, take a dip in Lake "Me", plug holes in dams, stand up and be counted, walk the walk, talk the talk, give the dog a bone, kill someone softly with his song, feed the world, do the macarena, pull the rabbit out of the hat and keep the cat in the box. In short, I have entered into a sponsorship deal with the Finnish food manufacturer Jiiiiiiiz, and so will be wearing a purple and white tabard resplendent with the logo of its brand-leading Coke rip-off, "Mister Jingles Softdrink".

My target today: Notting Hill Gate to Putney Bridge and back

10am. Notting Hill Gate Central Line to Bond Street
Playfully bitchslapping Les, spraying him with Mace and giving him a hefty kick in the chuggs, I bound down to the Central Line, enjoying the admiring stares of fellow passers-by at My Mr Jingles tabard and waving back at them with my now-trademarked giant hand. A bloke on the platform asks me if my name is Mr Jingles. I hate the general public - these people know nothing of the worlds of celebrity and advertising that I now traverse like a bandy-legged stiltwalking colossus. I resolve to get myself an agent and hop on the train. No VIP area, for fuck's sake. Fucking hell I'm annoyed.

10.13am. Bond Street
I briefly contemplate getting out and nipping down to Aspreys to get a new watch, but I decide to stay true to my roots - and of course, my loyal fans - and continue with the jailbreak. Jinglin' High, Jinglin' Low, Mr Jingles Softdrink helps you go! Erm, where was I? Right - on to the Jubbly line to Green Park, where the Queen plays football at lunchtimes in summer. She is an awesome tackler - her teammates call her "Bezerker".

10.15am. Green Park
My path to the Piccadilly Line platform is blocked by two megaphone-sporting God-jockeys. Strangely, both of them are Scousers. they are both wearing sandals and white sports socks and seem to be in some kind of "God-off" as they are shouting over one another, competing for commuters' hearts and minds. "La, let Jeeesus into yer life!" "Ar ey soft lad come unto Jesus and he will show yer the light" and so on. They try to bar my way, but melt to let me through when they spot my Mr Jingles tabard. Apparently Jiiiiiiiz has signed a deal with NURNAAL (National Union of Religious Nuts And Affiliated Loons) to supply their members with Mr Jingles softdrink when they are out at work.

10.22am. Earl's Court
I sprint off the train and up the escalator to the District Line. Earl's Court is still undergoing a huge renovation (it started 19 years ago with one engineer and a soup spoon). "They" say it's all about "improving the station and other such flim-flammery. But what "they" won't tell you is that "they" (It's actually just Transport For London, I'll stop calling them "they") are secretly building the world's biggest ever tunnel, which goes all the way through the centre of the Earth and comes out in a pub in Perth, Australia. The idea is that after 2007, when Tube staff spot an Aussie backpacker coming into Earl's Court station from the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly Line, they will be able to press a special button which will instantly repatriate said backpackers. Similar schemes are being built below London's 2,779 Walkabout Pubs. Before anyone accuses TFL of being unfair, the tunnel will have a series of special offshoots which will divert a lucky few into Shepherd's Bush, which is currently suffering from a woeful shortage of drunk antipodeans.

10.23am (or thereabouts). Fulham Broadway
I jump out of the train at Fulham Broadway, the home of, um, yeah, and sprint to Parson's Green Tube station just in time to rejoin the same train, in the same carriage. You can actually do this, y'know. The slightly startled other passengers in my carriage look at me like a God, which in some ways I am.

10.30am. Putney Bridge
Putney is boring. Kill yourself if you live there.

A Putney resident attempts to have fun.

10.35am. Parson's Green Station
I jump off the train again and run to Fulham Broadway Station. Sprinting across Eel Brook Common, my progress is impeded by cereal box toy lookalike, upper-middle class pop muppets Busted (pictured). I take a few seconds out of my tight, Finnish-sponsored schedule to berate 'the lads' (as they have never, ever been known) about their support for those sultans of unpleasantness, the Conservative Party. Holding the three of them by the scruff of their necks, I address them.

Busted get in some much-needed woodwind practice

"You're meant to start out left-wing and righteous, and become right-wing and selfish when you get older, you brainless little gonks. Go and stand in the corner and think about what you've done, for 11 years." The chaps thank me for my sage advice (I gave them some herb tips as well) and say they'll discuss it over Port and Shepherd's Pie at White's. McFly and V, look out - I'm coming to get you. Mr Jingles softdrink. Mr Jingles softdrink.

This little encounter has knocked me off schedule a wee bit, so I sort of segue into an alternative dimension which puts me on the train back to Notting Hill Gate, four minutes ago.

10.34am. Earl's Court
Not really.

10.35am. Kensington High Street
Or was it?

10.36am. Notting Hill Gate Station
I stroll casually off the train, safe in the knowledge that for once I have a bit of time on my hands. I decide to use the spare 24 minutes to chat to the guy who runs the newsagent's kiosk in the station about what's in today's papers.

11.01am. Notting Hill Gate itself
Jesus, that newsagent could talk the front legs off a florist. I find myself desperately scrambling up the steps, hoping for that other-dimension thingy to happen again, but of course it doesn't (exist). I get to the top and meet Les, who is looking at me disapprovingly and smelling of fish (there is a fishmongers near the station). He points to the stopwatch.
"You're late," he says.
"I know", I say. "What of it, Lezzer?"
"Just doing my job," he says.
"Let me explain," I say, taking his forearm.
He gently puts down the stopwatch, does that mime thing where you pretend you're behind a glass wall and you can't hear anyone or get past it, bursts into tears and walks away....

...Into the newsagent to buy a can of Mr Jingles softdrink to cheer himself up. It's almost like a magic drink!

A memorable Easter. I received a Cadbury’s Legends of Industrial Rock chocolate egg from Throbbing Gristle; my life coach/anger therapist Angus Panels (author of "Strop Till You Drop: How Power Tantrums Can Change Your Life!") tearfully confessed over a carafe of Blue Nun and a Sara Lee New Forest gateau that he is "insanely" in love with me; and Jesus rose from the dead again (impressive but I doubt David Blaine is having sleepless nights).

Angus Panels in "weekend" mode

To try to restore some order in my chaotic life, I decided that my next Lunchtime Jailbreak (it's a stupid game, read the rules here if you’re that bothered) should have a spiritual theme. To this end I am going to start somewhere holy, travel to a place Satan himself would rather mainline the Archbishop of Canterbury's Tizer than visit, then return to the holy place. We’re talking the big themes here. Good and Evil. Yin and Yang. Cannon and Ball. If I can bump into noted religion fan Cat Stevens along the way, all the better.

St Paul's
I am going to start my odyssey at the beautiful St Paul’s, the archetypal symbol of the Smoke. If any of you "give one", St Paul’s Tube station was formerly called Post Office on account of its proximity to the huge GPO sorting office nearby.

Fun Quiz: Some other London Tube stations were once named after nearby amenities: 1. Corner Shop That Never Has What You Want2. Dodgy Boozer Where Bert Weedon Once Stared Unsettlingly At My Pie 3. Organic Deli That Is The Toast of West London But Is So Expensive That Anyone Who Buys Stuff From It Feels Guilty and Dirty And Wishes They Were 17 Again, When Things Like Posh Delis Didn’t Matter4. Cab Office Also Selling Grass 5. Fuckington Central. What are those stations called now? Answers next time. Send entries to: Fictitious and not that amusing competition, Eclectic Boogaloo, c/o the internet, Carlisle, The World, The Milky Way, The Universe, The Solar System

Lord God not pictured

My destination is Camden Town: twat magnet for American backpackers seeking the cultural cachet of a sexually transmitted disease caught in Europe and legions of gothens (plural of goth) who revere Camden as a place of pilgrimage. It's like Lourdes, a bit, but with less wheelchairs and more people who model their image, tastes and outlook on a depressed Leeds Polytechnic Hospitality Management student circa 1985. Yes, really.

13.00 St Paul’s.
It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, children are laughing – for now - and somewhere, a trad jazz band sporting straw boaters and stripey blazers is entertaining a group of fat old white men, probably near a marquee of some sort. Bless them. As is always the case, there are a lot of tourists around St Paul's. I calmly but authoritatively inform them that they must leave London because Mayor Ken Livingstone has lost the capital in a high stakes game of whist and it is thus now owned (somewhat extraordinarily) by the New Zealand Alien Sex Friend tribute band Alien Sux Fiend. They leave for the airport, I stroll unhindered to the platform. A Central Line train arrives bound for Ruislip (pronounced 'Riesling' FYI). The train departs.

Somewhere between Holborn and Tottenham Court Road
You can still see the platforms and signs for British Museum Station, the defunct station that served the British Museum until 1933. Almost but not quite entirely unbelievably I catch a glimpse of a group of people in 1930s schmutter on the platform, waiting patiently for a train. As this is London, none of them will have spoken to or even glanced at each other for the preceding 71 years, preferring instead to continue reading their papers and avoid mention of the fact that the train is 71 years late and they are all dead. Ho hum.

Tottenham Court Road
I dash towards the Northern Line interchange. Time is tight. It has taken me longer than expected to get from St Paul’s to this point – around 12 minutes. 18 minutes to get to Camden Town. The train arrives. My journey is going remarkably smoothly, considering the Northern Line was suspended a few months ago because a train was derailed by a stray strand of human DNA.

Goodge Street
We hit Goodge Street. I am tempted to get out. Why? To find the answer to a puzzle, an enigma. Round the corner from Goodge Street Station there is a low-rent looking videotape and DVD shop that the owner has chosen to call "Good Street". Why? Did he think that by inserting the word "Good" into the name of the shop, passers-by would think "hmm, I’m not really in the market for a video right now - but by jingo, that place is obviously fairly impressive in terms of VHS videocassette sales...shall I'll pop in? Yes, I'm tempted". Or perhaps he thought that the casual pedestrian would see the sign and think "Man alive! The exquisite wordplay the owner of this shop has employed has me positively salivating for some videotape purchasing action. I'm sold. Do you have Porky's III?"

The alternative explanation is that the signmaker didn't like the letter "g". It happens. Really. Deal with it, move on.

Camden Town
Emerging from Camden Town Tube Station is like walking into a scene from The Passion of Chris, (not the Mel Gibson film, it's a biopic about the amazing life of eyebrow show-off Chris De Burgh) but with cars, 17,000 buses, one million Japanese tourists with camcorders the size of a tiny child’s fingernail, dealers, gothens, dogs on string, ex-punks, drunks, banjo fondlers, falafel bandits and fey indie tossers. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not.

Camden Borough Council's technical department

To make matters worse, I spot Angus Panels. Despite being insanely in love with me, he is about as welcome on this jaunt as a Cornish freedom fighter in a garden centre checkout queue. "He can’t be all that bad," I hear you whine. Allow me to explain.

Think, for a moment, of Gwynn Box, the winner of Mr Angry UK 2004 (pictured below). Now imagine Gwynn is having the worst day he has ever, ever had. Give him a Chinese burn. Make it two. No, make it 59 and pummel the crown of his head with your index finger knuckle while you do them (you may need to get a friend to help – perhaps a cub scout on bob-a-job week). Jab him hard and repeatedly in the chest.

Perturbed: Gwynn Box

Now force him at knifepoint to listen to that stupid song that goes "We're lovin' it lovin' it lovin' it, We're lovin' it like that" on the shittest personal stereo ever made, with the sound turned up as high and trebly as it goes. Tie him up, throw him into a giant tin drum, invite the cast of Starlight Express (Exeter) to batter it for one hour with nail-studded baseball bats, roll it down a hill into a sewage works, get a JCB to lift it out, take DNA from some amber and recreate the world’s scariest dinosaur, get Gwynn out of the barrel, cover him from head to toe in Shipphams “Beef Heaven” Paste, train the dinosaur to love only Shipphams "Beef Heaven" Paste and set it on Gwynn. Watch as he runs screaming for his life, helpless with rage and terrified. Shoot air rifle pellets at his arse. That is literally one nanozillionth (that’s a real measurement by the way) of how angry Angus Panels is.

Exit Camden Town.
Amazingly, the goths and tourists have done me a favour. I know that Angus is allergic to the scent of patchouli oil. I suspect he got to the top of the escalators at the Tube station, smelled the goths, got really angry, bitchslapped himself until his face resembled a burst purple football and turned round. I allow myself a faint, slightly disturbed smile, as is the fashion among Camden locals.

At Camden Lock I am accosted by a group of bastard children who appear to have constructed a skateboard rink (are they still called that?) directly in my path. Donning my indispensible self-inflating Simon Heffer disguise, I become instantly ginger and pompous and tell them they are breaking the law. The child ringleader accuses me of 'chatting bare breeze' (I assume he means 'making an incorrect assumption') and suggests I perform the physical act of love on myself. Now is the time to put Angus Panels's 'positive aggression' ethos to the test, I decide. Presently, I twat the little dick square on the coupon (facterooni: in Scotland they have 10 different words for face, including 'coupon', 'faicgh' and 'McFace'). I have to say, I do feel more positive about attaining my goals. Smiling smugly to myself, I make light work of dodging the automatic gunfire that peppers my path as I sprint away from the children.

“Simon Heffer”

Last Exit From Camden Town
I need to very quickly buy some tat before I make the return journey. Camden market, the home of useless tat that smells funny, is a smidge too far away, but there are a couple of stands near the Tube that appear to fit the bill. I approach one of them gingerly ( I still have the Simon Heffer disguise on).

Me: Do you have any cheap, pseudo-mystical shite I can buy?Owner of Pseudo Mystical Shite (Camden): Sold out.Me: Nothing at all?Owner of Pseudo Mystical Shite (Camden): Well, there is this “MY MUM WENT TO CAMDEN AND ALL SHE BROUGHT BACK WAS CHLAMYDIA!” T-Shirt. Oh and rayon "Union Jack motif" merkin.

I buy the two items and cartwheel back to the station, filled as I am with near ecstatic joy at leaving Camden.

Really, The Last Exit from etc etc...
The Tube is broken down (we are informed that a bout of aggressive breathing has damaged a train in Chalk Farm station). A family of Northerners (they're wearing t-shirts saying "HONK IF YOU HAD BLACK PUDDING LAST NIGHT!") are having a discussion about alternative lifestyle type stuff, in light of the fact that they have just been to the New Age Bollocks and Falafel section of Camden market and are clearly buzzing on Patagonian lesbian essence candles.

Without trying to make it obvious I'm eavesdropping (I cover my giant ear trumpet with a copy of Miniature Teapot Weekly), I listen in, but catch only snippets: "...eventually she became a Reiki master...tried to move Tufnell Park a whole centimetre north through sheer willpower..."bloke was a wizard in Romford before he got into the authentic Nepalese magazine rack business"..."regression therapy won't improve my hotpot!..."

Sorry for the stereotypes. I shall refrain from typecasting northerners from hereonin.

An average northern lad saying "eckythump", having just eaten some Hovis bread and finished his shift in a mill of some sort and tended to his ferrets

Eventually the train comes. I decide to take an alternative route using the Circle Line, because I have been rendered partially insane by being in Camden Town.

Euston
Here, one has to depart the station and run (you can walk normally unless you are engaged in the adrenaline-friendly pursuit that is Lunchtime Jailbreak) along Euston Road to Euston Square, which for years was cunningly disguised as the site of an asteroid strike to put off tourists from using it. I immediately skip on to a Circle Line train heading for Liverpool Street.

Just kidding. I have to wait four agonisingly long minutes, during which time a kid with an electric accordion materialises in front of me. He plays a bit of Leo Sayer, some 50 Cent, then finishes with a piece of blatant grandstanding in the form of "Eruption" from Van Halen’s first album. “Unusual repertoire,” I muse as I hand him 6p in change, including an old 5p that may not still be legal tender. The train arrives, I’m on my way to Liverpool Street.

Liverpool Street
Naturally I run down the escalators to the Central Line, all the while looking backwards over my shoulder so people think I am being pursued by international terrorists or secret agents, take your pick. A few people look at me quizzically. I arrive at the platform as a Central Line train pulls in, execute a technically faultless forward roll on to the train and we’re off towards Bank.

Bank
2 minutes to get to St Paul’s. I’m on target to “make the Jailbreak” within the allotted hour for the first time ever. I can feel myself welling up. I’ve come so far in the last few months. It's an emotional moment.

Ruislip Gardens
I wake up in Ruislip Gardens, as opposed to St Paul's. The intervening 46 minutes are as blank for me as a large sheet of white paper covered with the slogan "absolutely nothing written here" in invisible ink. The last thing I remember is smelling the faint tang of Shipphams "Beef Heaven" Paste and seeing a clown bearing down on me brandishing a bottle of Blue Nun and muttering something about how I needed to have my innermost, truest goals "beaten into me". I was eventually woken up by London institution and marginally too insistent religious fanatic Mr "Are You A Sinner or Winner?" dictating highlights from the Book of Revelations at me via my giant ear trumpet. I'll never forget Riesling Gardens.

THE RULES OF LUNCHTIME JAILBREAK: You have 1 hour to get as far away from work as possible (and back), using London's execrable Tube system. You have to use more than one line and you have to leave the station you get to and buy something.

SO THE PLAN was to take Lunchtime Jailbreak Xtreme - already the most Xtreme example of the game to be found anywhere in the world - to the next level. Move on up to Defcon 1. Take a dip in Lake Escalation. Moonwalk backwards up the Staircase of Difficulty and shake hands with Mr Challenging. You get the picture.

This bold decision coincided with the State visit of US President George W. Bush (the W stands for Willesden Green Underground Station Is Closed, in case you wondered). You will recall he came over to these shores to meet The Queen (and no doubt listen to her life-sappingly dull reminiscences on horses, miniature tea pot collecting and mis-spent evenings mastering Alien Sex Fiend songs at the knee of guitar Obergruppenfuehrer Burt Weedon).

My intention was to try to be directly underneath the ground Bush was standing on at some point in the course of Xtreme Lunchtime Jailbreak (read the rules here), just to give it a topical feel.

My carefully-selected team and I ("Me" out of Eclectic Boogaloo, "Mr Jingles" off TV'sDogs With Jobs, "Ken" from Extreme Engineering, "Janet" from reality TV abomination I Just Want A Cleaner - Not A Celebrity for Christ's Sake! and, of course, various members of Throbbing Gristle) studied Tube maps and the A-Z.

We drew up contingency plans without really knowing what contingency meant. We calibrated calibrats. We held meetings. Had a drink. Took in a show or two. Fooled around a bit (some people left at that point).

Anyway, me and the newly-slimmed down team constructed a route map which would theoretically take me underneath the Prez at the exact point he was shaking hands with the Royal Family and their assorted kommandants.This is what happened:

High Street Kensington Tube, 10am on November 20, 2003.
I sprint down to the eastbound platform whistling the US national anthem, "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Listen to Throbbing Gristle)" by American soft rock pie-jockey Malt Loaf. The train arrives. There are an inordinate number of tourists on it. One of them asks me how to get to Buckingham Palace. I pretend I am blind and that I think the voice is an announcement coming through the train's intercom. The woman and her husband edge away as I stare quizzically at the speaker on the ceiling and mouth the words "Jesus, is that really you?"

Victoria Tube Station.
I jump off the train, pausing only to shout "I'M NOT REALLY BLIND YOU FOOLS" at the tourist couple, while touching myself ostentatiously on the nose to emphasise my point. I barrel down the steps to the Victoria Line (one of the newer lines, it was completed in 1971 and was built in honour of the Kinks song "Victoria". Other Kinks-related transport tributes in London include Waterloo Sunset Station and the Tired of Waiting For You light railway in East North-East Croydon).

The most vital part of the journey
Mr Jingles and the team have calibrated that 17 seconds after my train leaves Victoria, I will be quite literally underneath the pavilion thing that has been erected at Buckingham Palace. I'm striding flamboyantly towards the Viccy Line when I am hit, hard and low, by an object the exact shape and size of Ronnie Corbett. I fall to the ground, execute a technically perfect forward roll and spring back to my feet. I am faced by two men dressed in black and wearing shades. One sports a badge saying "CIA Agents Do It Under Covers!". His companion has one that says "Honk If You Overthrew A South American Democracy Last Night!"

Man no1: "We cannot let you get on that train sir"Me: "Eh?"Man no2: "We know you are an unknown unknown". We've read your Electric Toothbrush website and we know what you're planning. Tell us about Neasden you schmuck.Me: "I'd love to mate but I've never actually made it there".

The two guys (who I think may have been CIA agents) are about to move in on me. Like a startled otter, Ken from Xtreme Engineering dives in between us. "Look over there!" he shouts, pointing towards Mr Jingles, who is giving the two men his famed "come over here and talk to me about chewable rubber dog toys moulded in the shape of bones etc" look:

Their attention successfully redirected towards the lascivious terrier, I head for to the escalator. As is customary I contemplate looking back over my shoulder as I'm running to make it look like I am being chased, realise that I probably am actually being chased this time, hit the platform and handspring on to the train. In just 17 seconds, I will be quite near the President of the United States. The train leaves.

Somewhere under Buckingham Palace
The moment passes quite uneventfully, as it happens.

Green Park Tube Station
What to do now? The decision is made for me when we are booted off the train (i'm being metaphorical - we were actually kind of coaxed out by underground staff waving lollipops at us). There has been a security alert because someone has thoughtlessly left a suitcase bearing the legend "THERE MIGHT BE A BOMB IN HERE" on the southbound platform. I decide to walk down to Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace
When I say "Buckingham Palace" I actually mean "Dollis Hill" because there is so much security that the thousands of us who came to see the freakshow wonderful reception have been held in a specially constructed "freedom pen" in the suburb that likes to call itself "The Streatham of the North".

The view is not good, it has to be said. I get chatting to some of my fellow pen pals. One of them is a DJ conducting a live radio show. He introduces himself as "shock jock" Rock "the Jock" Brock III Jnr from the Chicken, Kentucky-based radio station WNAK 5790. "Hi", I say. "Hi", he says. "Is that Prince Philip?" he asks. "No", I say. "That's the Dollis Hill branch of Poundstretcher". Rock cuts me off to begin an interview with US Noboarding* legend and self-styled Extreme philosopher Bertrand Russell-Square. WNAK indeed.

Also in the pen are Maureen from TV soap Bender and a bloke who I recognise from The World's Most Obviously Staged Camcorder Footage Of A Fat Man Pretending To Slip In His Daughter's Paddling Pool In The Vain Hope Of Getting £250. I think it may be time to get going.

The rest of the journey - Dollis Hill to Baker Street on the Jubilee Line, then on to the Circle Line and back to High Street Ken - is pretty uneventful. But I do pick up an intriguing fact en route. Next to me in the carriage, a man and a woman are having a conversation. The man says he used to be Prince Michael of Kent's Junior Equerry with Special Responsibilities for Role Playing Games. He revealed that the Queen and her family are big fans of the misfit-friendly, way-of-life-for-future-homicidal-maniacs board game Dungeons and Dragons. The Queen apparently assumes the name "Berzerker" when they play.

As I write this, I am tempted to leave that last sentence out as it stretches credulity. If you feel the same way, here is the alternative ending.

The rest of the journey - Dollis Hill to Baker Street on the Jubilee Line, then on to the Circle Line and back to High Street Ken - is pretty uneventful.
The End.

*The Collins English Dictionary describes Noboarding as "Snowboarding in the absence of snow, and without a board…partic. popular with philosophers and those who enjoy walking".

To "celebrate" the state "visit" of George "W" Bush to "London", and the resultant shutdown/banning of every subway system, rail network, bus route, car, bicycle, Sinclair C5, in-line skate, rollerskate, skateboard, scooter, vespa, motorbike, big-motorbike-that-has-a-canopy-like-a-car-without-doors-and-is-usually-seen-being-manouevered-by-German-tourists, motor-aided scooter, scooter thing that George "W" Bush fell off recently, jetpack, fannypack, pac-a-mac, crackerjack, set of legs, shoes, feet, slippers, trainers and pairs of hands (in case you walk anywhere on your hands) in the western world, I may or may not be taking Lunchtime Jailbreak up to Defcon 3 tomorrow.

Who knows - perhaps, at the very moment The Merkin Presdent is being regaled by The Queen with tales of how she was personally instructed how to play Jimi Hendrix's "1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)" on Spanish guitar by Burt Weedon, I shall be whizzing underneath them on a Tube train, manfully trying to get to Stockwell and back (actually not too hard, please email me if you want to know about the time I did that trip and got mugged by a Kenny G tribute act outside the station) in my lunch hour.

Another day, another challenging yet pointless and essentially dissatisfying game to be played out on the London Underground, as REO Speedwagon once sang.

I've decided to take Lunchtime Jailbreak to the next level. Let me introduce Lunchtime Jailbreak - XTREME!, brought to you in association with the jiggered Northern Line (a casually discarded strand of DNA from a human hair has caused a train to derail at Camden Town), which is about as useful a means of conveying people from A to B as a jar of hazelnut purée.

Today's challenge involves the usual scenario (getting as far away as possible from work and back in 30 minutes using more than one line on the Tube), but includes the XTREME! caveat that I have to use the Northern Line. Crazy times. XTREME times.

2.30pm. Donning my Young Stuntman Safety Outfit, I sprint down to HSK tube (if anyone is wondering, when I say "I sprinted to HSK tube" or "I jumped on to the track and wrestled a man in a clown suit just to see how it felt" I have actually really done it). Immediately I am faced with a dilemma. I haven't planned today's Lunchtime Jailbreak - XTREME and my synapses are a-snappin' with the possibilities ahead of me. Circle Line to Notting Hill, Central Line west? Try for Neasden again? (a boy has to have dreams). I settle on the mouth-watering prospect of a fraught and probably frustrating trip to TOOOTING BROADWAY (it's spelled with 3 "o"s, fact fans, in honour of Leonard, first Baroness of Toooting, who owned hunting rights on the land 9,000 years ago).

I settle for the District Line to NHG, primarily as it is the only train due to arrive within the next 300 million years. Two minutes later I'm bounding off the train and sprinting through NHG station to the Central Line. Fantastically, my nimble footwork through the station (which attracts a slightly bemused stare from a guard - I respond by blowing him a raspberry and diffidently flicking him the "Vs" with my giant hand) pays off. A train arrives at the platform immediately. I'm heading East - destination, Bond Street.

Bond Street. All is going to plan. I intend to change to the Jubilee Line and head south to Waterloo to pick up the Northern Line, or what's left of it, to Toooting Broadway. Running up the escalator towards the Jubilee Line, I contemplate pretending I am being chased by MI5/Blazin Squad/Throbbing Gristle, as is custom, but decide against it.

Up ahead of me, commotion. I catch up with it. The noise is being caused by a man with what seems like Tourette's Syndrome. I've never witnessed this before. The chap is jogging along, agitatedly muttering "Bond Street - C*NT STREET...BOND Street - CU*T STREET..." He appears to be fairly happy doing this and in fact chats with an alarmed looking Jello of American Tourists (Jello is the collective noun) in order to reassure them that he means no fucking harm:

'Things' reach a crescendo when the man approaches a busker, who it greives me to say is possibly the worst bongo player in the history of hitting things. He's battering his bongos and wailing. Imagine a town crier doing an impersonation of Tarzan's call in a miked-up giant tin drum. That's what it sounds like. Combined with "C*NT STREET - BOND STREET - C*NT STREET", the noise is incredible. Like Santana fronted by Bernard Manning. I ponder the possibility that this may be some kind of aural mind control technique being piloted by London Underground, instantly dismiss the notion, then continue running down to the Jubilee Line, with its funny-noise strangely-coloured trains.

The train is packed with tourists, who are going to Westminster to enjoy the delights of one of the most traffic-snarled pieces of turf in the UK and look at a gigantic clock. They all get off. As we’re travelling under the river, I can't help but think (as I always do when travelling under the Thames) about what would happen if the tunnel collapsed. How would my presence on a southbound Jubilee Line train at lunchtime be explained if I were to croak it? I can hear the news now: "It is thought he was playing a game called 'Lunchtime Jailbreak', in order to try to provide a nanosecond of very mild amusement on his weblog, which was called Eclectic Boogaloo and featured a photograph of a seemingly-irradiated Korky the Kat. Back to Huw in the studio." I suppose a flood would make the journey all the more XTREME!
Ho hum.

Waterloo. Having survived my trip under the river, I'm feeling bitchin' and really rather fucking pumped up dude, as they used to say on The Little House on the Prairie. I run towards the Northern Line. An unexpected bonus - i've forgotten that there is a TRAVELATOR at Waterloo. As is my custom when using a travelator, I sprint along it, using the extra speed the conveyor belt affords me to pretend I am the Bionic Man. I make the "chh-chh-chh-chh-chh-chh" noise as I ping past the lazy bastards who just stand there and let the belt do all the work, make a mental note to visit a psychiatrist, and finally make it to the Northern Line. They said it couldn't happen. How wrong they were, how wrong they were.

This is them:

Time is getting tight. I jump on the first Northern Line train I can, which is heading for Morden. In my heart of hearts, I know Toooting was just some crazy, crazy fantasy, and decide that Kennington is possibly more realistic. I make it to Kennington. Nothing of note happens, apart from the fact that outside the station, Larry Hagman is filming a public safety film about the dangers of using your mobile phone while roller-blading and watching a film on a portable DVD player, smoking, listening to music, playing a virtual reality shoot em up game and writing a letter to Burt Weedon. I buy a copy of Miniature Teapot Collector from the nearest newsagent (to satisfy the commercial element of the challenge) and head back into the Tube for the return leg.

Kennington station is being completely refurbished. All the walls have been stripped of their plaster. As I'm waiting for the train back to Waterloo, I spot a piece of graffiti on the opposite wall, which must date back to the 1930s at least. It says:

"Stanley Snodgrass is a blinking rotter and i'm having it away with Gladys. Bert 1937. n xtreme! ".

If you want to see it, get there quick before it's covered over with a Larry Hagman safety advert.

THE RULES OF LUNCHTIME JAILBREAK (generally made up on the spot): You have 1 hour to get as far away from work as possible (and back), using London's execrable Tube system. You have to use more than one line and you have to leave the station you get to and buy something.

2pm on a warm, sunny afternoon. I sprint to High Street Kensington station. My target: Neasden. Why Neasden, I hear you ask. well, I've never been there before, the word "Neasden" has a faintly humourous air to it and it's far enough away to lend an element of excitement to the challenge. It's also home to Dave Spart, Private Eye's Citizen Smith-esque, ranting socialist. And last but not least, my mum worked as a midwife there in the early 1950s. In fact, she told me that during the pea souper of 1952, she had to be led by the hand by a policeman to go out on calls.

How proud she would be of my lunchtime adventure.

So, to HSK tube. After much agonising, my route is: Circle Line to Baker Street, Jubilee Line to Neasden. Not too bad a wait for a Circle Line train. But I turns out I have made a schoolboy error.

I have forgotten about the Edgware Road Totally Fucking Pointless Wait Act (1979). This law states that any time you get a train towards Edgware Road, the Driver must sit outside the station for a period not shorter than 2 minutes. Any attempt to inform passengers of the reason for said wait may result in a fine. So I'm standing there, tantalisingly close to Edgware Road, pacing up and down, looking at my watch. We're off again. We get to Edgware Road.

I've forgotten about the other Edgware Road scenario. Whatever train you are on, you will have to change platforms because another one will be going towards your destination before the one you are on moves. I once changed platforms here SIX times, all the while trying to explain to a young, timid Japanese couple that I did know what I was doing and that they should follow me if they want to get to Victoria.

They didn't, and probably didn't.

Eventually, I arrive at Baker Street. I've lost about 8 minutes. So I sprint to the Jubilee Line. Whilst barrelling down the escalator I toy with the idea of pretending I am being chased by the police/a mercenary/MI6 by looking back over my shoulders anxiously, but discard this notion. I am 32 in a few days time and shouldn't really be contemplating such nonsense.

I get to the Jubilee line, with its funny sounding trains with their blue and yellow interiors. Bad news - the next train is only going as far as Willesden Green. I note that the woman's voice used for the automated announcement thingy for the Jubilee Line is MUCH louder and MUCH posher than on the other lines. The thing is, she emphasises "WILLESDEN GREEN!" as if it is the finest, lushest, most pleasant piece of the earth imagineable... "I'm gonna git myself a ticket and go to WILLESDEN GREEN pappy! I've heard a man can git his own piece o' land and really make sum'n of hiself there". Neasden, yes (I may be building it up in my head here), but Willesden Green? Do me a Quaver.

I have choices. I could wait 4 minutes for the following train, which goes all the way to Stanmore (oh joy!), or get the next one, change at Finchley Road on to the Metropolitan line, get off at Wembley and take the southbound Jubilee Line back to Neasden. I decide on this option. Time is running out...I have around 12 minutes to get to the big N.

Finchley Road. An agonising decision. I know I probably can't make it to Neasden in time. On the opposite platform is a Met train. I could run across the platform and try the "Met to Wembley then Jubilee back to Neasden" option. I jump off the train. Then I jump back on. Then I jump off, but the Met train's doors are closing. And so are the doors on the Jubilee train. I jump back on the train JUST IN TIME. The other people in the carriage stare at me. Obviously, as soon as I return their looks, they all look at the floor/Metro/into the future.

I decide that Neasden is an impossible dream today and elect to get off at West Hampstead after 29 minutes as it's probably the furthest I can get to. It's not a bad effort (4.5 miles according to the AA), but Neasden (5.1 miles) it ain't.

I spend approximately 5 minutes in West Hampstead. I will always love it because I will always treasure the memory of witnessing a builder carrying big bags of plaster into a house whilst wearing what is possibly the worst toupee I have ever seen. It makes him look like Patrick Troughton:.

I return to the Tube platform to begin the return journey. Nothing of note happens and I don't pretend I am being chased at Baker Street. It occurs to me as I am strolling back to work, that I could just pretend I made it to Neasden and write up a tale of daring adventure that would make Ranulph Fiennes look like Barry from Wife Swap. Who would ever know?

But I decide that in order to maintain the integrity of the weblog, I should tell the truth. It's an emotional moment.

Just at that point, a gang of armed men with stockings over their heads run out of the Halifax building society, punching a charity collector square in the coupon on the way. I manage to rugby tackle one of them, pulling the little bit of hair at the nape of his neck really hard as he falls, in order to gain complete control of him. The rest of the gang seem to kind of dematerialise into another dimension. These things happen in Kensington occasionally. I make a citizen's arrest on the thief I have on the ground and receive a £10 book token from the bank for my troubles - ample reward as I merely see myself as a citizen doing his job.

I dust myself down and return to work. Funny old day.

Footnote: A Google Images search for "Neasden" yields the following result: